Deep End Summer

The chlorine smell hit me before I even saw the pool. Kai's parties were legendary—mostly because his parents were never home and they actually had an in-ground pool. The kind of pool people posted about on their stories with aesthetic captions like "living my best life."

I stood at the edge, toes curled into the concrete, checking my iPhone for the third time in two minutes. No new notifications. Of course not. Everyone was already in the water, screaming and splashing like this was the most important thing that would happen all summer.

"You coming in or what?" Maya called from the deep end. She floated on her back, looking effortless in a way that made my chest tight.

"Yeah, just, uh, gotta warm up," I lied.

My golden retriever Buster, who'd followed me through the unlocked gate (because boundaries weren't his thing), chose that exact moment to shake himself vigorously near Marcus's phone. Chaos erupted—Marcus diving for his device, everyone cracking up, and me wishing I could dissolve into the concrete.

But then something shifted. I stopped caring about looking cool or how my hair looked wet or whether my stomach was flat enough for a swim shirt. I cannonballed into the deep end, water rushing up my nose, and came up sputtering while everyone laughed with me instead of at me.

Later, when we dried off and ate lukewarm pizza, Marcus tossed me a baseball he'd brought. "Your turn at bat," he said, and for the first time all summer, I didn't overthink it. I just swung, watching the ball arc into the twilight, feeling like maybe this summer wouldn't be so bad after all.

Sometimes you have to jump in the deep end before you realize you can swim.